Wednesday, March 28, 2007

News for 03-27-07

03-27-07 - UK ready to produce Iran evidence The government is preparing to release photographic evidence to support its assertion that 15 UK sailors seized by Iran were not in Iranian waters. This whole incident starts to look like what happened with Israel/Lebanon last July. Israel was planning a war on Hezbollah and waiting for the right opportunity, knowing that Hezbollah had been making efforts to capture IDF soldiers. Then, BINGO. We got a winner.

03-27-07 - Iran's border muddles captivity issue Neither side has released map coordinates to prove its case. Even if one side did, it is unclear that would be enough to convince the other. "If this happened south of where the river boundary ends, knowing the coordinates wouldn't necessarily help us," said Richard Schofield of King's College in London, who is an expert on the waterway. "We have to accept the British claim with as much salt as the Iranian claim."

03-27-07 - Oil spikes $5 on rumors of Iran attack ** U.S. light crude for May delivery jumped $5.18, or about 8 percent, to $68.91 a barrel in electronic trading before giving back most of those gains to trade at $64.40 a barrel, $1.47 above Tuesday's settle price on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

03-27-07 - US hawks see strikes on Iran as less likely now ** Mr. Rosbenberg says continued tough talk ? and the Democrat climbdown over the spending bill ? largely serve two functions: To hopefully soften up Iran in ongoing diplomatic negotiations over inspections of its nuclear facilities; and as a sop to hard-line groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which says it favors attacking Iran if diplomacy doesn't yield results soon, and whose lobbying was largely seen as leading Ms. Pelosi to take her action. I disagree with the author. It's coming, and that's why Rice is suddenly trying to make peace between the Israelis and Palestinians; to get support from those not on board for military action against Iran. All of this newfound talk of diplomacy and pragmatism is a ruse.

03-27-07 - Palestinian refugees in Lebanon pessimistic Refugees in places like the Burj al-Barajneh camp in the overcrowded shantytown on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital Beirut expect the gathering will result in major changes to the 2002 Saudi initiative, including the ?removal of the right of return?.

03-27-07 - Defense: Feds eyeballed AIPAC until it cut off Rosen, Weissman The U.S. Attorney in eastern Virginia at the time, Paul McNulty, "would like to end it with minimal damage to AIPAC," the document quotes Lewin as telling Lowell. "He is fighting with the FBI to limit the investigation to Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman and to avoid expanding it." WTF for? Read on: "When McNulty brought the indictment six months later, in August 2005, he emphasized that AIPAC was not under investigation. McNulty is now the deputy U.S. attorney general." No kidding? More: "On March 15, 2005, government officials meet with Lewin, the AIPAC lawyer, and disclose secretly obtained evidence; on March 18, McNulty's office allegedly tells Lewin that "AIPAC needed to fire Rosen and Weissman;" and on March 21, they're fired"

03-27-07 - Secretary Rice prods Mideast players to table When George Bush entered the White House in 2001 amid the early days of the Palestinian uprising, and after President Clinton's administration failed peace summits, the administration disengaged from the nuts and bolts of peacemaking. The only times the US seeks peace initiatives between these two groups is when the neocon-driven Bush admin seeks to gain support for an attack on a Middle Eastern nation.

03-27-07 - University apologizes to its Hillel Pace Hillel President Michael Abdurakhmanov told The New York Times in January that following complaints by a Muslim student group, a dean told him not to show "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West."? If the film were shown, the dean allegedly said, police could be called in and Hillel members could be considered suspects in recent Islamophobic acts. Hillel is a pro-Israel outfit.